Holger Daemgen

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So what happened after Anne Frank got busted and stopped writing her diary? The TV movie Anne Frank tells us not only of her days in the annex but also what happened afterwards -- namely, being shipped off to Auschwitz. Based not on her famed diary but on Melissa Muller's biography of Anne, the film also covers the time before the Franks sequestered themselves in the hiding, when Anne was just a preteen worried about boys.

Hannah Taylor-Gordon is an interesting find for the role of Anne, her few credits belying her ability before the camera. The story itself is, at three hours, far too long to carry our attention -- most notably because the scenes in the annex are overly repetitious and can't carry the hour and a half they are asked to do. Although Ben Kingsley is quite good in these scenes, starring as Anne's father, he can't cut through the plodding repetition. After only 10 minutes, we get it -- it was really claustrophobic up there.